“Ths sntnc s mssng ts vwls.” You have probably understood the words – “This sentence misses his vowels ” – Even if they lack several letters of the alphabet.
But how can you understand words without vowels?
Your brain Do not read the words letter by letter, said live experts. Instead, he searches for models, considers the context that then makes predictions. So, even if a word is poorly spelled or is missing its vowels, your brain should be able to understand it.
Your brain makes inferences about the world around you
“We do not passively receive sentences, but actively predict them”, ” David EaglemanA neuroscientist at the University of Stanford, told Live Science in an email. “Our brains are not virgin slates awaiting entry; they are model manufacturers, constantly generating internal expectations on what exists.”
When vowels are missing, your brain is based on past experience and context. He makes assumptions based on combinations of current letters, your knowledge of the language, as well as the surrounding words.
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According to Eagleman, this phenomenon also explains why you can recognize a friend in weak lighting. Even if the incoming sensory information is incomplete, your brain fills the gaps. “He uses what is available and compares it to a large internal library of models he has learned over time,” said Eagleman.
Recognize the words: the visual word form area
Alex WhiteDeputy Professor of Neuroscience at the New York Barnard College, told Live Science that there were many stages involved in the recognition of words.
As with any vision, your eyes first detect the object – in this case, the basic forms of letters. This information is sent to the visual cortex, the external layer of gray matter at the back of your brain, which treats the edges and curves of letters. More deeply in the brain, certain regions seem to identify specific letters and combinations of letters called Bigrams – pairs of letters that appear next to each other in a word, like “Th” or “Er”. From there, the information moves to a domain specialized in the left Fusiform gyrus known as the Visual word form area (VWFA).
The Fusiform gyrus is a large structure which covers the two brain hemispheres on the underside of the temporal and occipital lobes. It plays an important role in the processing of complex visual information. In most people, the right fusiform gyrus is responsible for recognition of the face and objects, while the left side houses the Vwfawhich plays a key role in the recognition of models of letters and words.
Researchers have Studies carried out Where they scanned the brains of young children, Jin Li, postdoctoral researcher in cognitive neuroscience of Georgia Tech, told Live Science. These experiences involved trying to capture the time window before and after children learned to read. “They can see this beautiful emerging VWFA after starting school,” she said.
With practice and exhibition, VWFA listens to the language you read, which makes it incredibly good to identify combinations of significant letters, even when letters are missing. For example, Hebrew is mainly written without vowelsAnd current readers can always understand the text with ease.
The commonly combined letters are probably a large piece of the puzzle in the way we can read words without vowels.
“A theory is that at the next stage after the visual cortex records the letters, neurons in your brain light When combinations of particular letters are present, not whole words, “explained white.” The combinations of letters detected can be pairs or triplets of letters which are common in your language, then these could activate part of your brain which recognizes the whole word. “”
These combinations of letters, Bigrams, are probably important constitutive elements which are used to recognize the models of familiar letters, in particular during the early stages of learning to read. Think on board. If you identify an “L” in fourth place and you are looking for probable letters for fifth place, you could consider “Y” because “Ly” is a common Bigram.
Choose the best word
The abolition of vowels introduces ambiguity.
The consonants partially activate several words in your mind, but you then go with the one that is probably based on the context.
After reading “Y CN RD SNTNCS WTHT VWLS”, your brain offers several possible candidates and settles relatively quickly on the one who has the most sense in the sentence. It is mental automatic consumption.
Abbreviations, predictions and recognition of models
People often use abbreviations consisting mainly of consonants rather than vowels – like BLDG. Or Dr – because we are naturally gifted to recognize these models, said Li. “People seem to be understood about how to shorten a word, and that does not generally include vowels.” In simple terms: we reverse a word from the abbreviation when they lack vowels.
After years of reading, you have absorbed the models of your language. You have learned which letters tend to go together and what words are part of what situations. You can read without vowels because your brain is not only read, it reconstructs.
“Our perception focused on expectations is what makes us such powerful recognition,” said Eagleman, “even when the data is corrupt”.
NC JB. An brn hd n prblm rdng this.
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